It has been joked about in numerous circles around San Diego. If this week's U.S. Open at Torrey Pines is the blockbuster success everyone expects it to be, the golden child will have many fathers stepping forward to claim credit.

Compared to Cameron Jay Rains, however, they all have to cry uncle.

Rarely in these times can sporting events the size of the U.S. Open be tied to a single individual, but San Diego's U.S. Open can. It was Rains, an attorney from La Mesa, who first had the dream of an Open for Torrey Pines while back East on Century Club business in the summer of 1999.

Rains, then president of San Diego's Century Club, and Buick Invitational Executive Director Tom Wilson broke away from meetings at the Buick Classic to play two of the U.S. Open's most vaunted courses, Winged Foot in New York and Baltusrol in New Jersey. During the rounds, Rains pumped key members of the courses for information on the Open and what it took to host it.

By the end of that trip, he had a vision. If the New York State-run Bethpage Black Course could host its first U.S. Open in 2002, why not Torrey Pines?

Rains, 51, is a golf fanatic with a passion for the game's history. He knew what a U.S. Open would mean to a city with deep roots in the sport. He also has a competitive fire from his days playing quarterback at Holy Cross, and as a graduate assistant coach at Notre Dame, where he earned his law degree.

“Jay was the moving force,” said Steve Horrell. “He just never gave up.”

Horrell is the former owner of the Singing Hills Resort (now Sycuan) who served on the U.S. Golf Association's Executive Committee from 1976-82. When Rains hatched his idea for the Open, Horrell naturally was one of the first to hear about it.

“Truthfully, I wasn't jumping through hoops when Jay first asked me about it,” Horrell said. “I think I thought of more reasons why it wouldn't work than why it would. I posed a lot of major obstacles, and Jay wasn't bothered by them at all.”

Horrell was convinced of one thing: The Torrey Pines South Course would have to be renovated for the USGA even to consider hosting the U.S. Open, and it wasn't going to be the city of San Diego that put up the money to pay for it.

First Rains put in a call to USGA Executive Director David Fay, who, like him, had been the dreamer who cooked up the idea for the Bethpage U.S. Open. When Fay made no promises, but didn't discourage him either, Rains began talks with “Open Doctor” architect Rees Jones about working up plans for a redo. And when the estimate for the construction came in at $3.5 million, Rains went looking for backers in the San Diego business community.

He took with him one of the most persuasive salesmen in town, Jim Brown, a car dealership owner and the chairman of the 1998 Super Bowl host committee. “When Jay and Jim put their arm on you, well ” Horrell said, chuckling, “it was terrific.”

When Rains got the backing of the Jacobs family, the owners of Qualcomm – after they'd made him pull out his own checkbook – he was on his way to building the group that would be called the Friends of Torrey Pines. In all, 23 families or individuals contributed at three levels of financial support.

Early on, Rains brought into the fold another former president of the Century Club, Rich Gillette, to be his closest partner in the project. It was Gillette, a mortgage broker who has served as the Torrey Open's co-chairman, who oversaw the construction work on the South. It began in July 2001 and was completed in only 91 days. The rededication was held in February 2002, just days before the PGA Tour's Buick Invitational teed off, and Torrey was awarded the U.S. Open eight months later.

Rains so impressed the USGA with his work that he was nominated to serve on its Executive Committee and has done so for the past six years. Traveling from six to eight weeks per year on his own time and money in the volunteer position, Rains has risen to a vice-president on the committee and may be in line to be president one day.

“Never in a million years did I think I'd have this opportunity,” Rains said of serving on the committee. “It's just a tremendous life bonus, if you will.”

In the years since San Diego was awarded the U.S. Open, Rains said a couple dozen people have been intensely involved in the planning process. He said 25 committees were formed under the USGA's model for Open management, and the host committee added about six more that are unique to this Open.

Among the San Diego features was the $5,000-per-table host committee dinner held this past Saturday to benefit the Pro Kids Golf Academy and the San Diego International Sports Council.

“It's consistent with the way San Diego does stuff,” Rains said, “to try to celebrate an event and benefit charities.”

Rains has come under fire from some golfers in the city who feel he has not protected the interest of local municipal players. The Friends of Torrey Pines is receiving its initial $3.5 million investment back, and will donate that money to the charities of its choice, according to Rains.

While the Friends also has committed to donating $535,000 in Open hospitality revenues to the renovation of the irrigation at the Balboa Park Golf Course, critics charge that the city's golf enterprise fund has had to spend millions to prepare for the Open, while receiving no direct financial benefit from the event. In essence, critics say, local golfers will pay for the U.S. Open with green fees that will rise once the championship is gone.

The city's general fund, meantime, is being paid $500,000 from the Friends of Torrey Pines.

“I don't have personal knowledge of the economics of the golf enterprise fund,” Rains said. “I don't view that as my business. I've looked at the totality of what it means to our community, and the economic impact it will have, which has been estimated north of $100 million. It's having our community seen around the globe in a positive light. The community will benefit dramatically from this event for a long time. From my standpoint, it's up to the city to decide how things are allocated.”